﻿322 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



condition, were taken. One of the most amusing episodes of the wet night 

 was that nearly all the insects on the trees were wet through, as far as 

 their scales would allow them to be, and yet seemed quite to enjoy the bath, 

 which was certainly more than we did ; one Triphcena fimbria in par- 

 ticular, I remember, was situated just under a leaf from which the rain 

 was dropping every second, but this seemed to be a source of pleasure to 

 the insect rather than otherwise. Eagwort flowers also had a large share 

 of attention. All the villagers thereabouts say that never in their 

 memories has there been more bloom than this year ; in fact it was almost 

 too abundant. Amongst the larger patches we had no success, but the 

 more solitary plants bordering the roads repaid us the best. Our first 

 night was the most successful at this mode of capture, though we tried it 

 every night, as well as the treacle, about fifty N. dahlii, twenty-five Agrotis 

 tritici, and one Hydrcecia nictitans (the only one seen during the visit) 

 being the result of an hour and a half's work on this particular evening. 

 Heather-bloom produced literally nothing either by day or night, though 

 carefully worked; one E.fulvago was taken at rest at night upon it, and 

 Cidaria testata was rather common flying around the bloom at dusk. One 

 Luperina cespitis, one Charceas graminis, and a clearwing (taken by Mr. 

 Batty, the species of which we are not quite certain about yet), all taken at 

 ragwort in the day-time, completes a meagre list of imagines. Of course 

 the redeeming feature was the abundance and splendid condition of N. dahlii, 

 but then everything else was very scarce, except A. tritici. Larvae were 

 also a most utter failure, beating birch and oak hour after hour and day 

 after day producing absolutely nothing ; Ephyra punctaria and E. pendu- 

 laria, of which one can generally get fifty of each in one day during a good 

 season, I only took three of the former and two of the latter. T. punctulata 

 was represented by about half-a-dozen larvae. The day before we left 

 some small, large-headed, Tortrix-like larvae, beaten from birch, puzzled 

 us considerably at first, but we have since found them out to be Cymato- 

 phora duplaris, and wished we had taken more. Ragwort produced larvae 

 of Eupithecia absinthiata and E. centaureata fairly commonly, but required 

 a good deal of finding, as there was so much food to look over^thelatter 

 species was considerably the commoner. Altogether the year hasHbeen a 

 very poor one for most insects, though some have been more than usually 

 abundant ; but it has been the larvae more particularly that have been so 

 conspicuous by their absence. In Mr. Batty 's long and my own short 

 entomological career we have never known such an utter absence of even 

 the commonest of autumnal larvae, or when beating and searching alike 

 have been so unproductive. — A. E. Hall ; Norbury, Sheffield, September 

 3, 1890. [If any entomologist has found larvae in their usual numbers 

 during the past August and September, perhaps he will be good enough to 

 communicate a note on the subject. — Ed.] 



Notes on Sugae. — The reports of captures at sugar during the past 

 year or two have been so conflicting, and on the whole so discouraging, 

 that any little information on the subject may be worth recording, and 

 therefore the account of three evenings at sugar in this immediate neigh- 

 bourhood, may not be altogether devoid of interest, especially as they 

 appear to agree most completely with news received from other localities. 

 On each occasion I sugared some twenty trees growing in a lane not half a 

 mile beyond the continuous lines of bricks and mortar, of which this 

 neighbourhood is chiefly composed, and where the hedgerows largely 



